Rudd faces Olympic hurdle

Rudd faces Olympic hurdle : "When the world community decided to give Beijing the Games, there were human rights abuses in China and Tibet at that time. 'Now these recent events, of course, have involved violence and we urge restraint on the part of all parties. We urge that the Chinese authorities deal with the Dalai Lama's representatives to work out a better outcome for the Tibetan people."

We all have an opinion on this. We certainly do not like or support what is happening in Tibet. It is not how you should be treating people these days. While we are criticising , we are still in Iraq and we have been part of the coalition which has brought about such human misery. This is why we didn't support it in the first place. The Olympics were awarded to China inspite of people talking about human rights abuses. We need to be clear that China is a nation which is changing. We need to be aware of what has been pointed out, that change occurs over time. We need to keep reminding people we do not like to live like this any more. There are other ways of dealing with it. My personal point of view is that we have so many athletes who give up hours of their days and whole sections of their lives to be Olympians. The games are a celebration of their training and sporting achievement. There are many Chinese people and people from all around the world who are working so hard and in such a dedicated way to bring us another Olympic games. The Chinese government has made certain decisions the same as the coalition has done. We have changed that by working together to get a better set of arguments and values going. Sport is not politics and I believe they need to be separated. I think it is far better to let people go there and express their views directly to those responsible for the situation in Tibet. This is not the Olympic committee and to use the Olympians as a political football to pursue those human rights issues is not right unless the athletes find the whole situation so untenable they cannot be there. In this case it is a matter for the athletes to decide. Talking about it openly and honestly will get a far better outcome than avoiding conversations. If I disagree with someone I do not avoid them and if I think their behaviour is out of line I deal with that because I want to see change. That is action. I really think the people involved in the Olympics need a chance to have a clear run up to the Olympics because we haven't been putting in those relentless hours of preparation and organisation. The politics of the behaviour of the Chinese government needs to be dealt with in a political arena.